OCAP Statement on the Report of the Commission for the Review of Social Assistance in Ontario

Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)

Over the last eighteen years, people on social assistance in Ontario have seen their real income levels fall by 56 per cent. For the last nine years, the Liberal Government of Dalton McGunity, while actually pushing people deeper into poverty, has continued a sham consultation process around “poverty reduction.” Recently, a Commission established by the Liberals issued a report on the “reform” of social assistance. The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) responded with this statement in which it argues that the report is a blueprint for forcing the poor into low waged jobs and pushing down wages for those presently employed.

Brighter Prospects is the spin doctored title of the long anticipated report on social assistance prepared for the Liberal Government by Frances Lankin and Munir A. Sheikh. For some nine years, the Liberals have talked “poverty reduction” while actually making people poorer and the release of this report is the crowning moment of this long process. As the Liberals prepare to intensify their agenda of social cutbacks and attacks on public sector workers, this report offers them three useful forms of assistance.

In the 2012 edition of Occupy Money released last week, Professor Margrit Kennedy writes that a stunning 35% to 40% of everything we buy goes to interest. This interest goes to bankers, financiers, and bondholders, who take a 35% to 40% cut of our GDP. That helps explain how wealth is systematically transferred from Main Street to Wall Street. The rich get progressively richer at the expense of the poor, not just because of “Wall Street greed” but because of the inexorable mathematics of our private banking system.

This hidden tribute to the banks will come as a surprise to most people, who think that if they pay their credit card bills on time and don’t take out loans, they aren’t paying interest. This, says Dr. Kennedy, is not true. Tradesmen, suppliers, wholesalers and retailers all along the chain of production rely on credit to pay their bills. They must pay for labor and materials before they have a product to sell and before the end buyer pays for the product 90 days later. Each supplier in the chain adds interest to its production costs, which are passed on to the ultimate consumer. Dr. Kennedy cites interest charges ranging from 12% for garbage collection, to 38% for drinking water to, 77% for rent in public housing in her native Germany.

In the 2012 edition of Occupy Money released last week, Professor Margrit Kennedy writes that a stunning 35% to 40% of everything we buy goes to interest. This interest goes to bankers, financiers, and bondholders, who take a 35% to 40% cut of our GDP. That helps explain how wealth is systematically transferred from Main Street to Wall Street. The rich get progressively richer at the expense of the poor, not just because of “Wall Street greed” but because of the inexorable mathematics of our private banking system.

This hidden tribute to the banks will come as a surprise to most people, who think that if they pay their credit card bills on time and don’t take out loans, they aren’t paying interest. This, says Dr. Kennedy, is not true. Tradesmen, suppliers, wholesalers and retailers all along the chain of production rely on credit to pay their bills. They must pay for labor and materials before they have a product to sell and before the end buyer pays for the product 90 days later. Each supplier in the chain adds interest to its production costs, which are passed on to the ultimate consumer. Dr. Kennedy cites interest charges ranging from 12% for garbage collection, to 38% for drinking water to, 77% for rent in public housing in her native Germany.

This is what Marx termed as surplus value. In other words, your transactional contribution along the chain of exchange which, if you live by the sweat of your brow is your labour, small business or worker, is what you share with the owner of the capital which is ultimately facilitating this exchange. This cannot be avoided in any system that has matured beyond mercantilism in the use of capital, i.e. capitalism. Trying to render capitalism pure, libertarian or green cannot alter the inexorable drive of this dynamic and its urge to globalise.

There is almost an element of wizardry to the process which lies in social economy with a strong emphasis on its cultural heart, Anglo-Saxon law. Which is why I consistently maintain that the position of the centres of capitalism, London and NY will always be at the forefront of this global system. These are natural objective processes and a function of the system we reside under. They are not the product of evil men, Lucifer, Illuminati, Reptilian aliens and other such nonsense. They are a function of our economic age.

Workers of the World, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!

Living and Dying in the Global Economy - Oil paintings examining the daily existence of people in the worst working, living (and dying) conditions in the global economy.By Caoimhghin Ó CroidheáinNovember 11, 2012

Making Cents: Life Below the Bottom Rung A series of oil paintings examining the daily existence of people in the worst working, living (and dying) conditions in the global economy.

Tolerance slides easily towards indifference, as the efficiency of the economy becomes the only shared commitment. Similarly, compromise turns readily into complacency, when the familiar seems safer than the unknown. ‘Neutrality’, it often turns out, is not neutral at all, but sides with the way things are to avoid the dissension that might lead to change for the better. Consensus, then, may come into conflict with justice. (Catherine Belsey Poststructuralism)

The victory by Barack Obama on election night has resulted in a huge wave of firings and layoffs all over America. A large number of businesses seem to have suddenly shifted into panic mode. The number of layoff announcements that we have seen in the last 48 hours has been absolutely shocking. So why is this happening? Well, the truth is that the federal government is absolutely suffocating small businesses all over America with rules, regulations and taxes. If you have never tried to run a small business, then you have no idea how oppressive this system actually is for people that are trying to run small businesses successfully. It has steadily gotten worse over the years no matter who has been in the White House and no matter who has controlled Congress. So we shouldn’t put 100% of the blame on Obama. Bush massively expanded government and made things harder on small business people too. But what many small business people were looking for on this election day was just a little bit of help. Many were desperately holding out hope that Obamacare would be repealed so that they would not have to get rid of some of their employees. Many were hoping to get a little bit of relief from the crippling regulations and taxes that are absolutely crushing them. But now that Barack Obama has been given another four years, they understand that there is no hope on the horizon and that things are only going to get worse. So they are making the hard decisions that they feel are necessary in order to survive in this economic environment.

If you are waiting for the economic collapse, you're too late – it's already happened. And it's TWCTM (Those Who Control the Money) who did it. They pulled the rug right out from under themselves. We are living in a world of complete economic fantasy, using numbers that are unfathomable, unconscionable, and un-repayable.

Those of you who already know this, bear with me for the sake of those who don't; but here's a quick primer on big-picture economics in the United States: Congress tells the Treasury that it needs some amount of money. The treasury asks the Federal Reserve Bank (“the Fed” – a privately held company, not a U.S. Government agency) to print/issue an amount of money. The Treasury issues Treasury Notes (a.k.a. T-Bills) to cover that amount of money and these Notes are sold to other countries who are, in effect, loaning us that money until the maturity date of the note. (Lately, though, other countries are less than enthusiastically buying up our T-bills. The biggest purchaser is now the Fed, themselves.)

The term “fiscal cliff,” first used by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke last February, refers to the simultaneous expiration of tax cuts and imposition of spending cuts on January 1, 2013.

The American media has seized on the term “fiscal cliff” and promoted it, in part, to suggest that measures which would otherwise be enormously popular — ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy or cutting military spending — are threatening, even dangerous.

The main purpose of the media propaganda about the impending “cliff” is to create a sense of financial emergency and override popular opposition to measures the Obama administration and congressional Democrats and Republicans will put forward to avert it, including sweeping cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

This is bolstered by the reaction in the financial markets, where a sharp sell-off could well serve as a political club to ensure that the policies demanded by Wall Street are adopted in Washington.

In the 2012 edition of Occupy Money released this month, Professor Margrit Kennedy writes that a stunning 35% to 40% of everything we buy goes to interest. This interest goes to bankers, financiers, and bondholders, who take a 35% to 40% cut of our gross domestic product.

That helps explain how wealth is systematically transferred from Main Street to Wall Street. The rich get progressively richer at the expense of the poor, not just because of “Wall Street greed” but because of the inexorable mathematics of our private banking system.

This hidden tribute to the banks will come as a surprise to most people, who think that if they pay their credit card bills on time and don’t take out loans, they aren’t paying interest. This, says Kennedy, is not true. Tradesmen, suppliers, wholesalers and retailers all along the chain of production rely on credit to pay their bills. They must pay for labor and materials before they have a product to sell and before the end buyer pays for the product 90 days later. Each supplier in the chain adds interest to its production costs, which are passed on to the ultimate consumer. Kennedy cites interest charges ranging from 12% for garbage collection, to 38% for drinking water to, 77% for rent in public housing in her native Germany.CONTINUE: [link to www.globalresearch.ca]

The Worst Economic Numbers In More Than A YearMichael Snyder, ContributorFriday, November 16, 2012Activist Post

With everything else that is going on in the world, a lot of people have failed to notice that we are seeing some of the worst economic numbers that we have seen in more than a year. For example, it was announced on Thursday that initial claims for unemployment benefits have hit their highest level in a year and a half. Hopefully this is just a temporary blip in the data, because initial unemployment claims tend to have a very strong correlation with the overall performance of the economy.

We also continue to see poverty statistics rise. According to government statistics released earlier this month, the number of Americans living in poverty and the number of Americans on food stamps are both at all-time record highs.CONTINUE: [link to www.activistpost.com]

Kyle Bass, Larry Edelson, Jim Rogers and Marc Faber Predict Widespread WarKyle Bass writes: Trillions of dollars of debts will be restructured and millions of financially prudent savers will lose large percentages of their real purchasing power at exactly the wrong time in their lives. Again, the world will not end, but the social fabric of the profligate nations will be stretched and in some cases torn. Sadly, looking back through economic history, all too often war is the manifestation of simple economic entropy played to its logical conclusion. We believe that war is an inevitable consequence of the current global economic situation.

Larry Edelson wrote an email to subscribers entitled “What the 'Cycles of War' are saying for 2013", which states: Since the 1980s, I’ve been studying the so-called “cycles of war” — the natural rhythms that predispose societies to descend into chaos, into hatred, into civil and even international war.

I’m certainly not the first person to examine these very distinctive patterns in history. There have been many before me, notably, Raymond Wheeler, who published the most authoritative chronicle of war ever, covering a period of 2,600 years of data.

However, there are very few people who are willing to even discuss the issue right now. And based on what I’m seeing, the implications could be absolutely huge in 2013.

Greece's Uncertain Future This short documentary looks at the current social crisis in Greece, the growth of alternative economies, general strikes, and the rise of the anti-fascist movement in response to violent attacks by the far-right. After six years of recession, the situation in Greece is growing increasingly dark. As the unemployment rate continues to rise and salaries continue to drop, the country has descended into an increasingly unpredictable situation.

They don't call it Black Friday Madness for nothing. Once again, as in years past, America will go wild and demonstrate the worst of humanity; including fights, near riots, knocking down children, and full-on degeneracy - all in search of America's Holy Grail: a good deal.

And it has arrived earlier than ever before, which ironically has led to protests within corporate monolith Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart spokesperson, Bill Wertz, defended the early hours by saying that "associates understand that Black Friday and the holiday season is the most important time of the year." The implication, of course, is that it is more important to be with Wal-Mart than to be with your own family for a relaxing Thanksgiving dinner.

Meanwhile, at other corporate giants like Best Buy, "tent cities" have formed in Southern California parking lots as shoppers wait for doors to open, Some were reportedly taking a week off of work to "save money." What kind of culture sets up "tent cities" in an effort to beat out their neighbors to see who can buy the latest garbage at the cheapest price? And probably on credit. A culture that can justify the following actual statement from within one of these Best Buy tent cities: 'I'm here for the big TVs, games for the kids and PlayStations,' Flores said. 'If we had money we wouldn't even be out here in the cold ... we barely saved enough to get our TVs.'

Luke Rudkowski got yet another chance to question the current chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. The last time the two met, Bernanke was not in a talkative mood, and since Luke only had one chance to ask one question he decided it had to be an important one. Luke asked Bernanke about the 2007 - 2010 secret trillion dollar Federal Reserve bailouts that only recently came to light from a partial audit of the Federal Reserve.

Exactly What Does The ‘"Free’" In Free Market Mean?Henry HardingWednesday, November 21, 2012Activist Post

The Libor was rigged, the wholesale gas market is a fix, the biggest of multinationals pay next to no tax on their profits but bleat that they pay payroll on their minimum wage workers, insisting that this is both responsible and, probably, humble. Several UK water companies spend a great deal of money to ensure that supplying life’s essential is the only socially responsible thing they do.

Having bought the infrastructure built by our forefathers for pennies in the pound, and then left it leaking like a Government enquiry, they presumably justify their position by pointing out that they have enough crap coming down their pipes to deal with already. So be grateful, pleb.

So why are they called free markets? In what world can monolithic corporate monsters dominate everyday life, to the absolute exclusion of any meaningful competition, and still be called free? In an Orwellian mood it may be suggested that it is simply Newspeak, a distraction of language to trick our minds into believing the opposite of truth. Leveraging maximum possible value is really just a posh way of saying screw the customer for all they got. Price gouging in a disaster zone, as Governor Christie of New Jersey reminds us, is a crime. Outside of a disaster zone it’s a business model. On Wall Street and in The City, it’s a very lucrative way of life. So let’s take a trip to a foreign beach to see the view from there.

More Americans Will Use Food Stamps For Thanksgiving This Year Than Ever BeforeBy Elizabeth FlockNovember 20, 2012

More Americans will use food stamps to buy their Thanksgiving dinner this year than ever before, according to a new report from the nonprofit government watchdog group The Sunlight Foundation.

The Food Stamp Challenge, which challenges higher-income families to live as if they are on food stamps, estimates that a person on food stamps has a budget of about $1.25 per meal. In other words, a family on food stamps must buy an entire meal per person for less than the cost of an average cup of coffee.

Usage of food stamps among low and no-income families has spiked since the collapse of the U.S. financial system four years ago. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, average participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamp program, has increased 70 percent since 2007. And economists have warned that usage of food stamps won't go down until unemployment improves.

The Big Banks are Amateurs When It Comes to Manipulating Interest RatesStaggering Levels of Fraud For Years On End …

The shadow banking system is bigger now than when the financial crisis started.

Not only does that e destabilize the economic system, but it allows for pervasive fraud.

As Max Keiser explains, massive fraud has continuously taken place over many years … as banks shift their liabilities into the shadow banking system during audit time – with the help of accounting firms andthe government – and then bring them back onto the books as soon as the auditor leaves:

But Obama and His Economic Team Chose the Big Banks InsteadWe’ve extensively documented that too much private household debt is killing our economy.

While Ben Bernanke and other economists who are running our economic policy literally believe that the amount of private debt doesn’t matter and isn’t even important to quantify, economists at the “central banks’ central bank” – the Bank of International Settlements – and many other leading economists say that high levels of private debt create a tremendous drag on the economy.

And Obama can’t plead ignorance.

Business Insider notes today: A number of economists privately told Obama that his recovery policies were weak in one key area: They didn’t do enough to address the mountain of homeowner debt.

The Washington Post reported yesterday: One year and one month before President Obama won reelection, he invited seven of the world’s top economists to a private meeting in the Oval Office to hear their advice on what do to fix the ailing economy. “I’m not asking you to consider the political feasibility of things,” he told them in the previously unreported meeting.

There was a former Federal Reserve vice chairman, a Nobel laureate, one of the world’s foremost experts on financial crises and the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund , among others. Nearly all said Obama should introduce a much bigger plan to forgive part of the mortgage debt owed by millions of homeowners who are underwater on their properties.

But Obama and His Economic Team Chose the Big Banks InsteadWe’ve extensively documented that too much private household debt is killing our economy.

While Ben Bernanke and other economists who are running our economic policy literally believe that the amount of private debt doesn’t matter and isn’t even important to quantify, economists at the “central banks’ central bank” – the Bank of International Settlements – and many other leading economists say that high levels of private debt create a tremendous drag on the economy.

And Obama can’t plead ignorance.

Business Insider notes today: A number of economists privately told Obama that his recovery policies were weak in one key area: They didn’t do enough to address the mountain of homeowner debt.

The Washington Post reported yesterday: One year and one month before President Obama won reelection, he invited seven of the world’s top economists to a private meeting in the Oval Office to hear their advice on what do to fix the ailing economy. “I’m not asking you to consider the political feasibility of things,” he told them in the previously unreported meeting.

There was a former Federal Reserve vice chairman, a Nobel laureate, one of the world’s foremost experts on financial crises and the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund , among others. Nearly all said Obama should introduce a much bigger plan to forgive part of the mortgage debt owed by millions of homeowners who are underwater on their properties.

This is the leading paradox of capitalism. As the momentum of capital picks up pace in its spread across the globe, it is accompanied by a rise in private debt which signifies a transfer of wealth.

Those "capitalist" economists who prescribe a reduction in this private debt are in fact prescribing capital's anathema, it's limitation and circumscription.

That of course is impossible as the very logic of our consumer society is the foundation stone for capital's deepening momentum. Of course, the debt also reminds us of the Great Collapse which lies ahead, many decades away it must be said and not in our lifetime.

Workers of the World, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!

A new report shows that the gap between the rich and the poor in the US is significantly wider than it used to be, with the annual median wage falling to $26,364 in 2010 while the high-earners increased their wealth by 71 percent.

The New York University report found that in 2010, the median net worth in the US reached its lowest point since 1969 at $57,000. Conducted by Professor Edward Wolff, who has studied Americans’ net worth since 1983, the report provided some surprising revelations about the extent of the income inequality.

While the middle class lost 18 percent of their net worth as a result of the the housing crisis, the top one percent of the richest Americans increased their earnings by 71 percent, thereby widening the gap between the rich and the poor. Each of the one percent is on average worth 288 times the value of a middle class American, the Economic Policy Institute recently reported.